Tings are falling apart in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a world that manifests, now more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along new and troubling lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from states, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the grasp of mobs. "An element is at work, silently, gradually", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and solid are faltering and giving way."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels the concluding book, which resumes where its predecessor left off. This is, reportedly, the author's final excursion into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating universe he first revealed in the distant past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a world whose landscape maps on to that of our world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and behave like us, but are joined by daemons, souls in creature form; where the heavens are filled with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, buses are ridden and beverages is consumed, and older professors carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a child in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still recognisably the prickly and determined heroine of the earlier books, but aged, more sorrowful, more cautious, more doubtful. This restraint is amplified by her split from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to leave in search of that innocent part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and peril on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in play, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of austere, procedural malice – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's family member, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of head of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is set on using his newfound authority to expand the institution's dominium. A key character, who saved young the heroine to refuge along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in spycraft: he is sent to Geneva to discover more about his plans. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and costly rose oil which seems somehow to be the origin of a social and financial disturbance rippling out from that area. The substance is regarded by certain groups as a marketable product, by others as a scientific or spiritual wonder, and by yet others – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a source of darkness; an affront that must be eradicated. The question of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be removed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to His Dark Materials, the heroine's actions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inextricably linked with the fate of the world
In its predecessor, these narratives ran broadly in parallel. In the conclusion, they converge. Like the original series, her choices and her path are revealed to be deeply entwined with the fate of the realm. Her individual quest to rejoin with her daemon and rediscover her imagination becomes the central battleground in a broader battle with an authoritarian system which, as such authorities often attempt, is striving to quell freedom of reason, originality and art: all the inner, defiant ways in which humans can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The book begins with the finding of a set of unusual openings in the makeup of the world's sky: windows that appear to give on to different dimensions. A particular portal manifests to be the point of the highly contested mystical extract. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its helm, labels these windows as a challenge to the institution's doctrine and endeavors to destroy them. As Lyra begins to move from strict rationalism and return to instinct, yet, her belief that these places must be defended – that their meaning and their value is mysteriously vital – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we name it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a poetic struggle between purity and knowledge is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
